The Narrative Intelligence Hypothesis: In Search of the

Transactional Format of Narratives in Humans and

Other Social Animals

Kerstin Dautenhahn

Adaptive Systems Research Group

University of Hertfordshire
Department of Computer Science
College Lane, Hatfield, Hertfordshire, AL10 9AB, UK
K.Dautenhahn@herts.ac.uk

Abstract. This article discusses narrative intelligence in the context of the evo-
lution of primate (social) intelligence, and with respect to the particular cogni-
tive limits that constrain the development of human social networks and socie-
ties. The Narrative Intelligence Hypothesis suggests that the evolutionary origin
of communicating in a narrative format co-evolved with increasingly complex
social dynamics among our human ancestors. This article gives examples of so-
cial interactions in non-human primates and how these interactions can be in-
terpreted in terms of nonverbal narratives. The particular format of preverbal
narrative that infants learn through transactions with others is important for the
development of communication and social skills. A possible impairment of the
construction of narrative formats in children with autism is discussed. Implica-
tions of the Narrative Intelligence Hypothesis for research into communication
and social interactions in animals and robots are outlined. The article concludes
by discussing implications for humane technology development.

1 Introduction: The Social Animals

Humans are primates, and share fundamental cognitive and behavioral characteristics
with other primates, in particular apes (orangutan, gorilla, chimpanzee, bonobo). Al-
though it is widely accepted that humans and other apes have a common ancestor and
that human behavior and cognition is grounded in evolutionary 'older' characteristics,
many people believe that human intelligence and human culture are 'unique' and
qualitatively different from most (if not all) other non-human animals. Human lan-
guage often serves as an example of a 'unique' characteristic. With a few exceptions
[Read & Miller 95], most discussions on the 'narrative mind' neglect the evolutionary
origins of narrative. Therefore, it is not surprising that most research on narrative
focuses almost exclusively on language in humans (see e.g. [Turner 96]). The work
that is presented in this paper attempts to complement these works: instead of focus-
sing on differences between human and other animal societies, we point out similari-
ties and evolutionary shared histories of primates with specific regard to the origins
and the transactional format of narratives (cf. [Dautenhahn 99], [Dautenhahn, to ap-
pear]).

M. Beynon, C.L. Nehaniv, and K. Dautenhahn (Eds.): CT 2001, LNAI 2117, pp. 248-266, 2001.
© Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2001
 The Narrative Intelligence Hypothesis: In Search of the Transactional Format of Narratives 249

The article sets off by reviewing the main arguments of a debate that is currently
discussed intensively in primatology and anthropology, namely that the characteristic
properties of human 'minds' and human culture are grounded in the human's capacity
to use language, and that the primary function of language was that it affords to cope
with increasingly complex social dynamics. Based on this framework on the social
origin of human intelligence we discuss the Narrative Intelligence Hypothesis (NIH),
first suggested in [Dautenhahn 99a], that points out the intertwined relationship be-
tween the evolution of narrative and the evolution of social complexity in primate
societies. The underlying assumptions and arguments are discussed in more detail.
The NIH as referred to in this paper consists of the following line of arguments:
a) individualized societies are a necessary (but possibly not sufficient) 'substrate' for
the evolution of narratives. In such societies members know each other and relate
to each other on an individual level (animals with 'personalities', 'minds'), and in-
teract with each other through transactional processes,
b) the specific narrative format of such transactions serves an important communi-
cative function among primates, and possibly independently in other groups of
species that live in individualized societies,
c) narrative co-evolved along and in order to cope with increasingly complex dy-
namics in the primate social field,
d) the evolution of communication in terms of narrative language (story-telling) was
an important factor in human evolution that has shaped the evolution of human
cognition, societies and human culture. The use of language in a narrative format
provided an efficient means of 'social grooming'
e) human cultures which are fundamentally 'narrative' in nature provide an envi-
ronment that young human primates are immersed in and facilitates not only the
development of a skilled story-teller and communicator, but the development of
an autobiographical self.
The NIH is speculative and part of ongoing research. The particular contribution of
this article is that it analyses in more detail the structure and canonical format of
narrative that can be found in different verbal and non-verbal social interactions
among primates, and in preverbal communication of human infants. The relationships
between narrative and culture and autobiography are touched upon but discussed in
more detail elsewhere ([Dautenhahn 99a,c], [Dautenhahn, to appear], [Dautenhahn,
submitted]).
Implications of the NIH are on the one hand a better understanding of the origins
of narrative intelligence in humans and other animals, on the other hand such an un-
derstanding can point out issues that are relevant in the design of narrative technology
that meets the social and cognitive needs of human users of such technology.

2 The Social Brain Hypothesis

Primate societies belong to individualized societies with complex kinds of social

interaction and the development of various forms of social relationships and net-
works. In individualized societies group members individually recognize each other
and interact with each other based on a history of interactions as part of a social net-
work. Many mammal species (such as primates, elephants, cetaceans) live in highly
250 K. Dautenhahn

individualized societies, so do bird species such as corvids and parrots. Preserving

social coherence and managing cooperation and competition with group members are
important aspects of living in individualized societies. Dealing with such a complex
social field often requires sophisticated means of interaction and communication
which are important for the Narrative Intelligence Hypothesis that is discussed in this
article.
In the context of human (or generally primate) intelligence the Social Intelligence
Hypothesis (SIH), sometimes also called Machiavellian Intelligence Hypothesis or
Social Brain Hypothesis, suggests that the primate brain and primate intelligence
evolved in adaptation to the need to operate in large groups where structure and cohe-
sion of the group required a detailed understanding of group members, cf. [Byrne &
Whiten 88], [Whiten & Byrne 97], [Byrne 97]. It is assumed that social complexity
that required the evolution of social skills (which allow to interpret, predict and ma-
nipulate conspecifics) has been a prominent selective factor accelerating primate brain
evolution, given that maintaining a large brain is very costly. Identifying friends and
allies, predicting others' behavior, knowing how to form alliances, manipulating group
members, making war, love and peace, are important ingredients of primate politics
[de Waal 82]. Thus, there are two interesting aspects to human sociality: it served as
an evolutionary constraint which led to an increase of brain size in primates, which in
return led to an increased capacity to further develop social complexity.
Research in primatology that studies and compares cognitive and behavioral com-
plexity in and among primate species can give exciting hints on the origins of human
cultures and societies. Particularly relevant for the theme of this article are the poten-
tial relationships between social complexity and brain evolution. A detailed analysis
by Dunbar and his collaborators gives evidence (e.g. [Dunbar 92,93,98] and other
publications) that the size of a cohesive social group in primates is a function of rela-
tive neocortical volume (volume of neocortex divided by volume of the rest of the
brain). This evidence supports the argument that social complexity played a causal
role in primate brain evolution, namely that in order to manage larger groups, bigger
brains are needed to provide the required 'information processing capacity'. Note, that
group size as such is not the only indicator of social complexity: other researchers
have found supporting evidence, e.g. that primate species with relatively larger neo-
cortices exhibit more complex social strategies than species with smaller neocortices
[Pawlowski et al 98].
What specifically characterizes social complexity? Here, a definition that applies
to many systems from machines to animal societies might be useful. According to
[Philips & Austad 96] complexity is a function of: 1) the number of functionally dis-
tinct elements (parts, jobs, roles), 2) the number of ways in which these elements can
interact to perpetuate the system or to promote its goals (or, if it is an artifact, the
goals of its users), 3) the number of different elements (parts, jobs, roles) any individ-
ual within the system can assume at different times or at a given time, and 4) the ca-
pacity of the system to transform itself to meet new contingencies (i.e. the capacity of
the system to produce new elements or new relations between elements). According
to Philips and Austad conditions 1 and 2 can be applied to many systems from ma-
chines to societies. Conditions 3 and 4 are particularly suited to social organization.
Condition 3 refers to the number of different roles an animal can play in a social net-
work, and how these roles and relations to other animals dynamically change over
time (condition 4).
 The Narrative Intelligence Hypothesis: In Search of the Transactional Format of Narratives 251

How are social networks and relations established and maintained? Judging from
our own experience as a member of human society, communicating via language
seems to be the dominant mechanism for this purpose. Non-human primates in the
wild do not seem to use a human-like language. Here, social cohesion is maintained
through time by social grooming. Social grooming patterns generally reflect social
relationships, they are used as a means to establish coalition bonds, for reconciliation
and consolation and other important aspects of primate politics. Social grooming is a
one-to-one behavior extended over time that poses particular constraints on the
amount of time an animal can spend on it, given other needs such as feeding, sleeping
etc. Also, cognitive constraints limit the complexity of social dynamics that primates
can cope with, as discussed in the following paragraph.
Given the neocortical size of modern humans, Dunbar (1993) extrapolated from
the non-human primate regression (relative neocortical volume vs. group size) and
predicted a group size of 150 for human societies. This number limits the number of
relationships that an individual human can monitor simultaneously, it is the upper
group size limit which still allows social contacts that can be regularly maintained,
supporting effective coordination of tasks and information-flow via direct person-to-
person contacts. The number 150 is supported by evidence from analyzing contempo-
rary and historical human societies. But how do humans preserve cohesion in groups
of 150 individuals, a function that (physical) social grooming serves in non-human
primate societies? In terms of survival needs (resting, feeding etc.) primates can only
afford to spend around 20 % of their time on social interactions and social grooming,
much less than a group size of 150 requires. It was therefore suggested by Dunbar
(1993) that in order to preserve stability and coherence in human societies, human
language has evolved as an efficient mechanism of social bonding, replacing social
grooming mechanisms in non-human primate societies with direct physical contact
(allowing only much smaller groups). Following this argument, language allowed an
increase in group size while still preserving stability and cohesion within the group.
The next section will elaborate this argument further by analyzing what the particular
features of communication via language are that makes it an efficient 'social glue' in
human societies.

3 The Narrative Intelligence Hypothesis

In the context of the evolution of human intelligence, the Social Intelligence Hypothe-
sis offers little explanation for the evolution of specific ape and human kinds of intel-
ligence (e.g. involving mental representations): clear evidence for a systematic mon-
key-ape difference in neocortex ratio is lacking. Great apes do not form systematically
larger groups than monkeys do, which draws attention to physical rather than social
factors (e.g. tool use, processing plant food etc.) that drove the evolution of mental
representations in apes and humans. Why have in particular human apes evolved
sophisticated representational and mental skills, are there any candidate factors that
could have accelerated the evolution of human intelligence? If the evolution of lan-
guage played an important role, as suggested by others (e.g. [Dunbar 93], [Donald
93]), what are the particular characteristics of language that matter?
We discussed previously [Dautenhahn 99a] that a closer look at the ontogeny of
language and narrative, i.e. the role of language in the development of children could
252 K. Dautenhahn

provide an important hint: Evidence shows that narratives play a crucial role in how
young human primates become socially skilled individuals with an autobiography,
being able to effectively communicate with others [Nelson 93; Engel 95].
Narrative psychology suggests that stories are the most efficient and natural hu-
man way to communicate, in particular to communicate about others [Bruner 87; 90;
91]. As Reader and Miller suggest "stories are universally basic to conversation and
meaning making", and as developmental and cross-cultural studies suggest "humans
appear to have a readiness, from the beginning of life, to hear and understand stories"
[Read & Miller 95: p. 143]. The Narrative Intelligence Hypothesis [Dautenhahn 99a]
interprets such evidence from the ontogeny of human language in the context of pri-
mate evolution: it proposes that the evolutionary origin of communicating in stories
co-evolved with increasing social dynamics among our human ancestors, in particular
the necessity to communicate about third-party relationships (which in humans seems
to reach the highest degree of sophistication among all apes, cf. gossip and manipula-
tion, [Sinderman 82]). According to the NIH human narrative intelligence might have
evolved because the structure and format of narrative is particularly suited to commu-
nicate about the social world.
Looking at human evolution, we can observe an evolutionary trend from physical
contact (non-human primates) to vocal communication and language (hominids) to
communicating in stories (highly 'enculturated' humans living in complex societies)
correlated with an increase in complexity and sophistication of social interaction and
'mindreading'. This trend demonstrates the evolution of increasingly efficient mecha-
nisms for time-sharing the processes of social bonding. While physical grooming is
generally a dyadic activity, language can be used in a variety of ways extending the
dyadic use in dialogues to e.g. one-to-many communication as it is today used exten-
sively in the mass media (television, books, email etc.). It can be estimated [Dunbar
93] that the human bonding mechanism of language is about 2.8 times as efficient as
social grooming (the non-human primate bonding mechanism). Indeed, evidence
suggests that conversational groups usually consist of one speaker plus two or three
listeners. Of course larger groups can be formed easily, but in terms of actively par-
ticipating and following different arguments within the group 1+2(3) seem to be the
upper limit for avoiding information processing overload in the primate social brain.
Also, language because of its representational nature affords documentation, preserva-
tion in storage media and transmission of (social) knowledge to the next generation,
as well as communication between geographically separated locations [Donald 93].
Discussions in the social domain (e.g. on social relationships and feelings of group
members) are fundamentally about personal meaning, different from e.g. discussions
in the technical domain (e.g. about how to operate a tool or where to find food). Nar-
rative might be the 'natural' format for encoding and transmitting meaningful, so-
cially relevant information (e.g. emotions and intentions of group members). Humans
use language to learn about other people and third-party relationships, to manipulate
people, to bond with people, to break up or reinforce relationships. Studies show that
people spend about 60 % of conversations on gossiping about relationships and per-
sonal experiences [Dunbar 93]. Thus, a primary role of language might have been to
communicate about social issues, to get to know other group members, to synchronize
group behavior, to preserve group cohesion.
Although humans use gestures, facial expressions, body language and other non-
verbal means to convey (social) meaning, human communication is dominated by
 The Narrative Intelligence Hypothesis: In Search of the Transactional Format of Narratives 253

verbal communication, which is serial in nature (although in face-to-face interaction

accompanied by non-verbal cues). Thus, given the serial communication channel of
human language, what is the best means to communicate social issues - so important
for primates as argued above - namely, learning about the who, what, and why?
Physical social grooming, the main group cohesion mechanism in non-human pri-
mates is 'holistic', parallel, spatial, sensual, meaningful. How can a stream of symbols
that are in themselves meaningless convey meaning such as bodily grooming does? I
argue that narrative structure and format seems to be particularly suited: usually a
narrative gives a certain introduction of the characters (making contact between indi-
viduals, actors, listener and speaker), develops a plot, namely a sequence of actions
that convey meaning (value, pleasurable, unpleasurable), usually with a high point
and a resolution (reinforcement or break-up of relationships), and focuses on unusual
events rather than stereotypical events. In this way, stories seem to give language a
structure which resembles (and goes beyond) physical grooming, namely replacing
physical presence and actions by the creation of a mental picture of physical actions,
providing the stage, actors, intentions and a storyline. Story-telling also gives more
flexibility than social grooming as to the actors and content of the stories: stories can
include people that are part of the current audience, as well as absent persons, histori-
cal characters, fictional characters, etc. Stories that are told by a skilled story-teller
(e.g. using appropriate body language, exploiting prosody, and possessing a rich rep-
ertoire of verbal expressions) can give very good examples of 'the power of words'.
The format of a story can provide sensual, emotional, and meaningful aspects to oth-
erwise 'factual' information, e.g. people often clearly remember works of literature
that elicited strong emotional responses and were influential at a particular time dur-
ing their lives.
To summarize, the following strategies of coping with a complex social field in
primate societies were outlined in the preceding sections:
a) non-verbal, physical social grooming as a means of preserving group cohesion,
limited to one-to-one interaction
b) communicating about social matters and relating to others in the narrative format
of transactions with non-verbal 'enacted' stories
c) using language and verbal narratives in order to cope with social life
The Narrative Intelligence Hypothesis suggests that the evolution of human societies
might have gone through these different stages, not replacing preceding stages, but
adding additional strategies that extend an individual's repertoire of social interaction,
ranging from physical contact (e.g. in families and very close relationships), to pre-
verbal 'narrative' communication in transactions with others (let alone the subtleties of
body language and nonverbal social cues, not necessarily conscious, cf. [Hall 68],
[Farnell 99], [Gill et al 99]), to developing into a skilled story-teller within the first
years of life and refining these skills throughout one's life. The next section gives a
few examples of where we might find narratives in the behavior of humans, other
animals, and possibly even artifacts. To begin with, we need to have a closer look that
the specific canonical format of narrative.
254 K. Dautenhahn

4 In Search for Narratives

4.1 What Exactly Are Narratives?

Many definitions and theories of narrative and narrative intelligence exist in the litera-
ture. This paper follows a particular theory formulated by Jerome Bruner and dis-
cussed in his publications, e.g [Bruner 87,90,91].
Bruner's account of narrative needs to be placed in the context of his distinctions
of two complimentary modes of thought and understanding the world Bruner (1990):
The paradigmatic mode or logico-scientific one is based on the idea of a formal,
mathematical system of descriptions and explanations. Discourse in this mode re-
quires consistency and noncontradiction. Tools such as logic, symbol-systems,
mathematics, sciences, and automata have been developed in order to experience and
learn about the 'truth' in the physical world.
The second mode of thought according to Bruner is the narrative mode that deals
with human intentions and that we use to understand the social and cultural world
through stories. These stories remain stories whether they are true or not, and whether
they are based on facts or fiction.
Thus, stories are primarily dealing with people and their intentions, they are about
the social and cultural domain rather than the domain of the physical word. Narratives
are often centered towards subjective and personal experience. According to Bruner
(1991) narrative is a conventional form that is culturally transmitted and constrained.
Children are not born as skilled story-tellers, the grow up immersed in a culture of
story-tellers (parents, peers) who help them develop and shape their narrative skills
and autobiographical selves [Nelson 93; Engel 95]. Narrative is not just a way of
representing or communicating about reality, it is constituting and understanding
(social) reality.
More specifically, Bruner (1991) discusses different characteristics of narrative,
properties that distinguish an utterance or any part of language from a story:
1. Narratives describe sequences of events, in 'human time' rather than 'clock time'
2. Narratives are about 'unusual events', 'things worth telling' that can nevertheless be
embedded in generic scripts
3. Narratives describe people or other agents, endowed with intentional states, acting
in a setting in a way that is relevant to their beliefs, desires, theories, values etc.
4. Narratives must have a plot that conveys meaning, and a high point
The complete list of characteristics is described in [Bruner 91]. A detailed discussions
of these criteria and implications for agent design are discussed in [Sengers 2000].
Particularly important for the theme of this paper are characteristics 2 and 3: dif-
ferent from episodic memory that can for example be represented in scripts [Schank
& Abelson 77], such as the famous 'restaurant script', narratives are about breaches
and violations to routine behavior. Also, stories are about the social field, about peo-
ple as intentional and mental agents, and how they relate to each other.
Narrative capacities (understanding and producing stories) are capacities shaped
by society, but developing in an individual being (cf. [Nehaniv 97], [Dautenhahn &
Coles 01]). Also, stories have an important meaning for the individual agent, e.g.
stories that children tell to themselves play an important part of a child's abilities to
make meaning of events (cf. [Nelson 89], [Engel 95]). Similarly, a human profes-
 The Narrative Intelligence Hypothesis: In Search of the Transactional Format of Narratives 255

sional story-teller might rehearse relevant material in solitude, but in the actual per-
formance takes into account the specific audience, its reactions, and other indications
on how the audience 'might think and feel', so that the actual story can be adapted
appropriately. Thus, stories, at least for fundamentally social animals such as humans,
are most effective in communication in a social context:
"We converse in order to understand the world, exchange information, per-
suade, cooperate, deal with problems, and plan for the future. Other human be-
ings are a central focus on each of these domains: We wish to understand other
people and their social interactions; we need to deal with problems involving
others; and other people are at the heart of many of our plans for the future."
[Read & Miller 95: p. 147].
Bruner's above mentioned criteria of narrative structure and format do not only apply
to stories that are told and written, but equally well to other formats such as comics
[McCloud 94]. Human culture has developed various means of artistic expression
(sequential visual arts, dance, pantomine, literature etc.) which are fundamentally
'narrative' in nature, conveying meaning about people and how people relate to the
world. Children who are immersed in human culture, exposed to those narratives,
develop as skilled story-tellers, as is shown in the following story of an 11-year old
when asked to write a story about a robot. Note, that the story fits very well Bruner's
criteria:
"In America there was a professor called Peter Brainared and in 1978 he cre-
ated a robot called Weebo. Weebo could do all sorts of things: she could create
holograms, have a data bank of what the professor was going to do, show car-
toon strips of what she was feeling like by having a television screen on top of
her head which could open and close when she wanted to tell Peter how she
felt. And she could record what she saw on television or what people said to
her. Weebo looked like a flying saucer about as big as an eleven year old's
head also she could fly. Peter Brainared had a girlfriend called Sarah and they
were going to get married but he didn't turn up for the wedding because he was
too busy with his experiments so she arranged for another one and another one
but he still didn't turn up, so she broke off the engagement and when he heard
this he told Weebo how much he loved her and she recorded it, went round to
Sarah's house and showed her the clip on her television screen to show Sarah
how much he loved her and it brought Sarah and Peter back together." (study
described in [Bumby & Dautenhahn 99])
Please note that although a central protagonist in the above story is a robot, it is de-
picted as an intentional agent embedded in a social context [Dennett 87].

4.2 Narratives and Autism

Traditionally Jerome Bruner, Katherine Nelson, Susan Engel (see references above)
and other psychologists interested in the nature and development of narratives have a
particular viewpoint of narratives in terms of human verbal story-telling. Interest-
ingly, Bruner and Feldman (1993) proposed the narrative deficit hypothesis of autism,
a theory of autism that is based on a failure of infants to participate in narrative con-
256 K. Dautenhahn

struction through preverbal transactional formats. Children with autism generally

have difficulty in communication and social interaction with other people [Jordan 99],
and this theory suggest that these deficits could be explained in terms of a deficit in
narrative communication skills. As it is discussed later in this article, this work gives
important hints on the transactional structure of narratives, a structure that we believe
is of wider importance, not limited to the specific context of autism.
What is a narrative transactional format? Bruner and Feldman distinguish different
stages. They suggest that the first transactional process is about reciprocal attribution
of intentionality, of agency. The characteristic format of preverbal transactions is
according to Bruner and Feldman a narrative one, consisting of four stages:
1) canonical steady state
2) precipitating event
3) a restoration
4) a coda marking the end.
An example is the peek-a-book game where 1) mutual eye gaze is established be-
tween infant and caretaker, 2) the caretaker hides her face behind an object, 3) the
object is removed revealing the face again, and 4) "Boo", marking the end of the
game.
Bruner and Feldman suggest that problems of people with autism in the social
domain are due to an inability early in their lives to get engaged in 'appropriate' trans-
actions with other people. These transactions normally enable a child to develop a
narrative encoding of experiences that allows to represent culturally canonical forms
of human action and interaction. Normally this leads a child at 2-3 years of age to
rework experiences in terms of stories, until she ultimately develops into a skilled
story-teller [Engel 95].
As research by Meltzoff, Gopnik, Moore and others suggest, transactional formats
play a crucial role very early in a child's life when she takes the first steps of becom-
ing a 'mindreader' and socially skilled individual: reciprocal imitation games are a
format of interaction that contributes to the mutual attribution of agency [Meltzoff &
Gopnik 93], [Meltzoff & Moore 99]. Immediate imitation creates intersubjective
experience [Nadel et al 99]. By mastering interpersonal timing and sharing of topics
in such dyadic interactions children's transition from primary to pragmatic communi-
cation is supported. It seems that imitation games with caretakers play an important
part in a child's development of the concept of 'person' and [Meltzoff & Gopnik 93;
Meltzoff & Moore 99], a major milestone in the development of social cognition in
humans.
Data by Bruner and Feldman (1993) and others indicates that children with autism
seem to have difficulty in organizing their experiences in a narrative format, as well
as a difficulty in understanding the narrative format that people usually use to regulate
their interactions. People with autism tend to describe rather than to narrate, lacking
the specific causal, temporal, and intentional pragmatic markers needed for story-
making. A preliminary study reported by Bruner and Feldman (1993) with high-
functioning children with autism indicated that although they understood stories (gave
appropriate answers when asked questions during the reading of the story), they
showed great difficult in retelling the story, i.e. composing a story based on what they
know. The stories they told preserved many events and the correct sequence, but
lacked the proper emphasis on important and meaningful events, events that moti-
 The Narrative Intelligence Hypothesis: In Search of the Transactional Format of Narratives 257

vated the plot and the actors. The stories lacked the narrative bent and did not con-
form to the canonical cultural expectations that people expect in ordinary social inter-
action. Such a lack of meaning-making makes conversations in ordinary life ex-
tremely difficult, although, as Bruner and Feldman note, people with autism show a
strong desire to engage in conversations [Bruner & Feldman 93].
Generally, there are different aspects to narrative in communication: expressing or
telling stories, recognizing stories (understanding narrative in other agents) and ex-
periencing the world through narratives (being an autobiographic agent) [Nehaniv
99a].
The following example of narratives in robots concentrates on the mechanisms of
how a single agent can express episodic memory and what could make them narra-
tives.

4.3 Narratives in Robots

The project Memory-Based Interaction in Autonomous Social Robots takes an Artifi-

cial Life perspective on stories and narratives [Dautenhahn & Nehaniv 98], [Nehaniv
& Dautenhahn 98]. The minimal working definition of stories used in the project is
as follows: "Stories are sequences of actions, expressed by an autonomous agent (in-
cluding movements as well as 'speech acts'), which can be related to previous situa-
tions in the agent's autobiographical memory" [Dautenhahn & Coles 01]. Note, that in
the context of this particular project we use the term 'story' in terms of episodical
events. Such stories clearly do not fulfill Bruner's list of criteria for narratives and
might therefore be better called pre-narratives. A computational framework was de-
veloped which supports systematic experimental studies of story-telling in autono-
mous behavior-based robotic agents (simulated and physical robots).
A particular goal in this project is to study minimal experimental conditions of
how story-telling might emerge from episodic memory [Coles & Dautenhahn 00],
[Dautenhahn & Coles 01]. An initial experimental study [Dautenhahn & Coles 01]
investigated memory-based controllers and computational mechanisms of 'story-
telling' for robotic agents. We showed that 'story-telling' (i.e. using episodic memory)
can be beneficial even to a single agent (cf. [Nehaniv 97]) since it increases the be-
havioral variability of the reactive agent. Thus, from the point of view of developing
Artificial Life post-reactive agents [Nehaniv et al 99], we can speculate that minimal
mechanisms in the 'first story-telling animal' (not necessarily social) might have sur-
vived because the animal was better adapted to a dynamic environment. Later, this
capacity could have been used and further developed in a social, communicative con-
text. Note, that for our pre-narratives we do not presuppose any knowledge of the
meaning or interpretation of stories. We did not want to impose meaning by a human
designer since meaning implies meaning for a particular agent, evaluated from its
own (historical) perspective [Nehaniv 99a]. Similarly, understanding in this frame-
work means that the agent's stories are grounded in its own experiences rather than
imposed by a human designer.
Such kind of research with an experimental computational and robotic test-bed
demonstrates a bottom-up approach towards studying narrative and how it can arise
and evolve from pre-narrative formats (e.g. episodic memory abilities and formats
that are necessary but not sufficient for narratives, as discussed in previous sections)
in agents and agent societies. Also, it can provide a means to design and study narra-
258 K. Dautenhahn

tive robots with 'meaningful' narratives that are grounded in the robot's own experi-
ences and means of interacting with the world and other agents (including robots), so
as to contribute to the robot's agenda to survive. This approach is different from the
common approach to building robots with a body language where non-verbal or
scripted narrative behavior is imposed onto the robot purely by design so as to make
the robots believable and entertaining for human observers (cf. [Bruce et al 00]).

4.4 Narratives in Animal Behavior?

Stories have an extended temporal horizon, they relate to past and future, they are
created depending on the (social) context. Do animals use narrative formats in trans-
actions? Studies e.g. with bonobos, Grey parrots and dolphins on animal language
capacities teach the animals a language (using gestures, icons or imitating human
sounds), and test the animal's language capacities primarily in interactions with hu-
mans [Savage-Rumbaugh et al 86; Pepperberg 99; Herman 01]. In the wild, the extent
to which animals use a communication system as complex as human language is still
controversial, e.g. dolphins and whales are good candidates for sophisticated commu-
nicators. However, looking for verbal and acoustic channels of communication might
disguise the nonverbal, transactional nature of narratives, as shown in preverbal pre-
cursor of narratives in the developing child, and possibly evolutionary precursors of
(non-verbal) narrative that can be found in non-human animals. Michael Arbib (2001)
proposes an evolutionary origin of human language in non-verbal communication
and body language that can be found in many social species (e.g. mammals, birds).
He suggests that imitation (and the primate mirror neuron system [Gallese et al 96])
provided the major mechanisms that facilitated the transition from body language and
non-verbal imitation to verbal communication. This work supports the arguments as
presented in this paper, namely proposing a) the existence of a strong link between
non-verbal, preverbal and verbal communication, and b) the important role of dy-
namic formats of interactions, such as imitative games, in the development of social
communication.
With this focus on interactional structure and non-verbal narratives, how can sto-
ries in non-human species look like?
Let us consider Frans de Waal's description of an event of reconciliation in
chimpanzees.
"On this occasion Nikkie, the leader of the group, has slapped Hennie during a
passiing charge. Hennie, a young adult female of nine years, sits apart for a
while feeling with her hand the spot on her back where Nikkie hit her. Then
she seems to forget the incident; she lies down in the grass, staring in the dis-
tance. More than fifteen minutes later Hennie slowly gets up and walks straight
to a group that includes Nikkie and the oldest female, Mama. Hennie ap-
proaches Nikkie, greeting him with soft pant grunts. Then she stretches out her
arm to offer Nikkie the back of her hand for a kiss. Nikkie's hand kiss consists
of taking Hennie's whole hand rather unceremoniously into his mouth. This
contact is followed by a mouth-to-mouth kiss. Then Hennie walks over to
Mama with a nervous grin. Mama places a hand on Hennie's back and gently
pats her until the grin disappears". ([de Waal 89], pp 39,42)
 The Narrative Intelligence Hypothesis: In Search of the Transactional Format of Narratives 259

This example shows that the agent (Hennie) is interacting with an eye to future rela-
tionships, considering past and very recent experiences. Hennie, Nikkie and Mama
have histories, autobiographic histories as individual agents [Dautenhahn 96], as well
as a history of relationships among each other and as members of a larger group.
Although the event might be interpreted purely on the basis of behavioristic stimulus-
response rules, for many primatologists the interpretation of the event in terms of
intentional agents and social relationships is the most plausible explanation.
Interestingly, Hennie's interaction with Nikkie shows the canonical format of nar-
rative transactions among intentional agents described in section 4.2:
1) canonical state: greeting: soft pant grunts
2) precipitating event: Hennie reaches out to Nikkie (attempt at reconciling relation-
ship)
3) restoration: kissing (relationship is restored)
4) end: Hennie is comforted by Mama
The second example we discuss is a different type of primate social interaction,
namely tactical deception whereby the agent shifts the target's attention to part of its
own body. In this particular case the agent (female Olive baboon) distracts the target
(male) with intimate behavior.
"One of the female baboons at Gilgil grew particularly fond of meat, although
the males do most of the hunting. A male, one who does not willingly share,
caught an antelope. The female edged up to him and groomed him until he
lolled back under her attentions. She then snatched the antelope carcass and
ran". (cited in [Whiten & Byrne 88]).
Here, the analysis in terms of transactional narrative formats looks as follows:
1) canonical state: male brings antelope, female waits
2) precipitating event: distraction by grooming
3) restoration: female snatches food and runs away (resolution, female achieves goal)
4) end: female eats meat (not described)
Episodes of animal behavior as described above are different from other instances of
animal behavior that possess a certain structure and appear in sequences, such as the
chase-trip-bite hunting behavior of cheetahs. Also, the alarm calls of vervet monkeys
[Cheney & Seyfarth 90], although serving an important communicative function in a
social group and having a component of social learning, are not narrative in nature. It
is not the short length of such calls that makes it difficult to interpret them in terms of
narrative, it is the fact that their primary function is to change the behavior of others
as a response to a non-social stimulus, i.e. the sight of a predator, causing an appro-
priate behavior such as running to the trees after hearing a leopard alarm. The narra-
tive format in animal behavior on the other hand refers to communicative and transac-
tional contexts where communication is about the social field, e.g. group members,
their experiences and relationships among them. Narratives are constructed based on
the current context and the social context (communicator/speaker plus recipi-
ents/audience). The primate protagonists described above apparently interacted with
respect to the social context, i.e. considering the social network and relationships
among group members, with the purpose of influencing and manipulating others.
Thus, such kind of non-verbal narratives are fundamentally social in nature.
260 K. Dautenhahn

For a more detailed analysis of narrative formats in animal behavior a lot more
work is necessary. For example, the characteristics of the transactional format that
Bruner and Feldman suggested (1993) need to be elaborated, possibly revised or re-
placed, and might need to be adapted to specific constraints of the primate social field
[Tomasello & Call 97], so our interpretation can only give a first hint on what aspects
one might be looking for when searching for narrative formats in animal communica-
tion.

5 The Narrative Intelligence Hypothesis Revisited

If human language and narrative intelligence, rooted in nonverbal narrative intelli-

gence in non-human primates, has evolved to deal with an increasing need to commu-
nicate in more and more complex societies, what predictions can be made based on
this hypothesis? How could the Narrative Intelligence Hypothesis be tested? What are
important research directions based on the importance of narrative in animals and
artifacts?
Let us first consider how the NIH might be confirmed or dismissed. As with other
hypotheses on the origin of primate/human intelligence and language, animal behav-
ior and communicative abilities are not directly documented in the fossil record, they
can only be inferred indirectly from anatomical features (e.g. the vocal system that is
necessary to produce a human-like language) and remains that indicate social struc-
tures (e.g. remains of nests or resting places, or groups of animals that died together).
However, recent primate species that could serve as models of ancestors of the human
species might give clues on what groups of primate species one might analyze if
wanting to trace the origins of human narrative intelligence. Possible narrative struc-
tures confirmed in primate behavior might then be correlated with the complexity of
the social field in these species.
With respect to the evolution of human societies, Russel [Russell 93] discusses
four levels of social organization which might serve as models for the evolution of
human societies: a) the 'shrew'-type pre-primates: solitary, many offspring, insecti-
vores, e.g. Purgatorius, a 70-million-year-old fossil, b) the 'mouse-lemur'-type pri-
mates: bush-living, nocturnal, strong mother-daughter bonding (stable matrilines),
social learning (offspring learns from mother), solitary males and social groups of
mothers and daughters, e.g. the 50-million-year-old fossil Shoshonius cooperi, c) the '
Lemur catta'-type diurnal lemurs: appearing about 54 million years ago, social groups
(troops), dominant females, submissive males, stable matrilines, occasionally consort
bonds between single male and female, e.g. Adapidae, d) the 'chimpanzee'-type le-
mur-ape: appearing about 24 million years ago, groups of dominant males and sub-
missive females, stable families of mothers and their offspring, male power coalitions,
e.g. Dryopithecus. The social organization of recent species of apes shows variations
of this pattern: of harem-structures (gorilla), solitary lifestyle (orangutan). Russel
discusses how human societies can be interpreted and discussed as variations of such
primate social patterns.
The Narrative Intelligence Hypothesis would predict that comparative studies of
communicative, and in particular narrative formats of interactions across primates
species with different social organizations, e.g. as described above, can identify a
 The Narrative Intelligence Hypothesis: In Search of the Transactional Format of Narratives 261

correlation between the complexity of the narrative format and an increasing com-
plexity of the primate social field. Such an increase of social complexity need not be
limited to group size, but could also cover all other aspects of social complexity that
we discussed previously, such as an increasing number of different types of interac-
tions and roles of group member, and the dynamics of how the social network can
change and adapt to changes. Such stages of social organization can be related to
behavioral as well as cognitive and mental capacities of primates. The NIH suggests a
search for the narrative format in interactions, a format that is so efficiently suited to
communicate and deal with the complexity of social life.

What kind of research directions and research methods could the NIH inspire?

Testing with Robotic and Computational Models:

As indicated in section 4.3 artifacts could provide scientific tools to explore and ex-
perimentally test the design space of narrative intelligence. Narratives in this sense
need to have a 'meaning' for an (intentional) agent. The approach of using artifacts as
experimental test beds has been used successfully for many years in the areas of adap-
tive behavior and artificial life, yielding many interesting results that a) help under-
standing animal behavior, b) help designing life-like artifacts, in this case artifacts
with narrative skills.

Study and Analysis of Animal Narrative Capacities:

Since the Narrative Intelligence Hypothesis does not assume any 'novel' development
in the transition from nonverbal (through evolution) or preverbal (development) to
verbal narrative intelligence, a detailed study and analysis of the structure and format
of animal narrative communication is required in order to develop a proper frame-
work. Many vertebrate species are highly social (e.g. non-human primates, dolphins,
whales, elephants, bird species such as crows and parrots) and use non-verbal means
of body language in interaction and communication. Narrative intelligence has on the
one hand a communicative function (as a means of discourse and dialogue), but it has
also an individual dimension (understanding and thinking in terms of narrative). Re-
vealing narrative structure in animal communication might therefore further our un-
derstanding about meaningful events in the lives of these animals.

Interesting open research questions (this is not an exhaustive list):

• Relationship between preverbal and verbal narrative intelligence in humans (on-
togeny)
• Relationship between nonverbal narrative intelligence in non-human animals and
narrative intelligence in humans (phylogeny)
• The format of nonverbal narrative intelligence in animals (species specific? Spe-
cific to social organization of animal societies?)
• Can we identify narrative 'modes of thought' in different animal species?
262 K. Dautenhahn

6 Implications for Human Society and Technology

There are many implications of the Social Brain Hypothesis and the Narrative Intelli-
gence Hypothesis for technology development. Human cognitive and narrative ca-
pacities are constrained by human evolution. Even technological extensions and en-
hancements (new media, new means of communication, new interfaces and implants)
need to operate within the boundaries set out by biology.
Firstly, for people whose real social networks are smaller than 150, the roles of
friends and social partners might be filled by other 'partners', either human beings e.g.
actors in movies and soap operas, news presenters or presenters of daily chat shows,
fictional characters such as Captain Kirk in Star Trek or Homer Simpson, including
computer game characters such as Lara Croft in Tomb Raider. Although many of
such 'social relationships' are rather uni-directional (we bond with them but they do
not bond with us and do not even know of our existence), they might serve a similar
role than real human networks [Dunbar 96]. The boundaries between real and artifi-
cial are often nebulous or ambiguous, cf. interactions with chatbots or MUD robots in
multi-user on-line environments [Foner 00], or a new generation of embodied conver-
sational agents, e.g. software agents that might serve as real estate agents [Bickmore
& Cassell 00]. Today, new interactive game software can create believable illusions
that agents truly bond with their users, e.g. the Norns in the computer game Creatures,
or robotic pets such as Furbies or Aibo's that are extending such acquaintances even
to the physical level. However, this extension of real social networks (see [Turkle 95])
is not without limitations, constrained by the cognitive group size limit of 150 that
characterizes human primates social networks. As Dunbar argues (1996) modern
information technology might change a number of characteristics of how and with
whom and with what speed we communicate, but not influence the size of social net-
works, nor the necessities of direct personal contact that need to provide trust and
credibility to social relationships. Note, that the cognitive group size refers to indi-
vidually knowing somebody: humans have developed varies means of coping with
very large group sizes, e.g. military ranks, castes, stereotypes, (possibly prejudices),
etc. Although we might 'know' the names of thousands of people (e.g. as entries in a
database) such 'knowing' is not based on individual knowledge.
Language is a dominant means of communication in modern societies human that
can do remarkable things seemingly without limits. "Yet underlying it all are minds
that are not infinitely flexible, whose cognitive predispositions are designed to handle
the kinds of small-scale societies that have characterized all but the last minutes of
our evolutionary history." [Dunbar 96].
Building narrative technology, in particular interactive environments is a growing
area, ranging from applications in education and therapy to entertainment. In the pro-
ject AURORA we are developing a robotic agent as a therapeutic tool for children
with autism. Here, giving the robot story-telling skills could address issues that are
relevant to Bruner and Feldman's narrative deficit hypothesis (see section 4.2). At
present the robot we use in the AURORA project is not historically grounded, it reacts
based on the here and now ([Dautenhahn 99b], [Dautenhahn & Werry 00], [Werry et
al, this volume], [Dautenhahn, in press]), but architectures such as the one we studied
for the robotic story-teller (section 4.3) might be applied and studied with respect to
their therapeutic effect.
 The Narrative Intelligence Hypothesis: In Search of the Transactional Format of Narratives 263

Generally, we can expect that empowering human skills of forming and maintain-
ing social networks might be advanced by supporting the development of narrative
skills in children and adults. As we discussed in this article, narratives are not only
entertaining and fun, they serve an important cognitive function in the development of
social cognition and a sense of self [Dennett 89]. However, as discussed in [Nehaniv
99b], humane technology needs to respect human narrative grounding in order to
avoid undesirable and unforeseen effects.
The narratives of the future might reflect our ability to preserve coherence and
structure in human societies that consist of increasingly fragmented, temporally and
geographically distributed social networks. In shaping this development it is impor-
tant to investigate the evolutionary heritage of our narrative capacities and the natural
boundaries it provides. Also, appreciating the stories other non-human animals tell
will allow us to put our familiar stories-as-we-know-them into the broader perspective
of stories-as-they-could-be.

Acknowledgements. The project Memory-Based Interaction in Autonomous Social

Robots is supported by a grant from The Nuffield Foundation, NUF-NAL 00. The
AURORA project is supported by EPSRC (GR/M62648), Applied AI Systems Inc.,
and the National Autistic Society (NAS). Thanks to Phoebe Sengers, Michael Mateas
and Chrystopher Nehaniv for fruitful discussions on narrative over the past few years.
The ideas expressed in this paper are nevertheless my own.

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